


The Coming of Thieves

by shuofthewind



Category: Brave (2012), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, F/M, Historical Divergence, Historical Fantasy, Historical References, Icelandic Sagas Ahoy, Nordic Mythology - Freeform, References to Norse Religion & Lore, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23291443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: "Do you trust me?" said Hiccup, and as he looked down at her from dragonback, her eyes glowed. Through the smoke, they gleamed almost like blue flame. "Merida. Do you trust me?"Merida looked back, over her shoulder. Then—"Ach, you'd best not make me regret this—" she reached up, and seized him by the wrist.---------The fall of the Red Death and the taming of Berk's dragons seems to have spread ripples across the Northern Sea; ones that Hiccup and the other Vikings most certainly could not have anticipated. Now that winter is over, the warriors of Berk must decide how they—and their dragons—stand in a world of raiders, traders, and conquering kings.At the same time, in the Highlands, the stories of the Bear Queen of Dun Broch and her fearless daughter have drawn unwanted eyes. Heeding the warnings of the will-o'-the-wisps, Elinor sends Merida north, to her mother's people, for her own safety.  Meanwhile, Merida is having dreams—not of bears or wisps, but of a woman who claims she is magic-touched.As stories intertwine, an old enemy of both dragons and men emerges, and it's clear that Highlanders and Berk's dragonriders must work together to fight against it—or neither may survive.
Relationships: Astrid & Fishlegs & Hiccup & Ruffnut & Snotlout & Tuffnut, Astrid Hofferson & Merida (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Merida (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Merida (Disney)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broadwanime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwanime/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cultural notes/comments at the end.

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_On one occasion, Hoskuld held a feast. His brother Hrut was there and was seated next to him.  
Hoskuld had a daughter called Hallgerd, and she was playing on the floor with some other girls.  
She was tall and beautiful, with fine silken hair that fell to her waist. _

_‘Come over here to me,’ Hoskuld called out to her._

_She did so, and Hoskuld took her by the chin and kissed his daughter. After she had gone away again, Hoskuld said to Hrut, ‘How does the girl strike you? Is she not beautiful?’_

_Hrut sat in silence. Hoskuld asked his question again._

_This time, Hrut answered, ‘Certainly your daughter is beautiful, and many men will pay for it.  
But I don’t know how thief’s eyes got into our family.’_

_Hoskuld was angry at this, and for a while there was coolness between the brothers._

~Brennu-Njáls saga

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**ONE**

On the island of Berk, there were few days that weren’t wholly occupied with the weather trying to bash the village off the rocks. If it wasn’t snowing, it was hailing; if it wasn’t hailing, it was storming; if it wasn’t storming, it was so cold that breath froze to your lips and the hairs in your nose, your ears and fingers were like to drop off if you didn’t cover them (or have a convenient dragon to warm them on), and more than a few of the _ætt_ had lost a toe or three to frostbite. It also made hunting and trade wholly impossible, prior to making peace with the gigantic winged firebreathers that now called their island home alongside them.

Still, reptiles, even firebreathing reptiles, hated the idea of going out in blizzards as much as the next sensible creature. As such, for most of the winter, sheep were locked in their barns, villagers were locked in their homes, and dragons made nests for themselves wherever they pleased. A great many of them napped. Toothless was not one of those many. Hiccup figured that with Toothless’s size, high energy levels, and general ability to breathe fire, he was one of the few dragon breeds beyond the Gronkle and Monstrous Nightmares to fully be able to survive the winter without eating all that much or worrying about wind and hail.

The fact that Toothless still could not fly without Hiccup on his back put a little bit of a dent in things, however. Toothless stayed inside with Hiccup during bad weather (which was about nine of the ten months of winter Berk experienced) and by the end of it, Hiccup was fairly sure that he, Toothless, and Stoick all wanted each other dead. It’d take more than a few months for his father to get used to _living_ with dragons instead of bashing them with hammers, and Toothless still hadn’t forgiven Stoick for putting him in chains and using him to get to the Dragon Island. It was a miracle there hadn’t been a murder, or at the very least, a broken bone.

Getting the third sunny day in a row (and confirming with Gobber’s stumps that the weather had finally taken a turn for the better) was a very great relief to all of them, and had everyone on Berk—including the dragons—gathering in the Great Hall to hear announcements, check on general foodstores, and chat with people they’d seen little of for months.

If Hiccup were fully honest with himself, he was still vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of people recognizing him. Not that he’d never gone unrecognized—he was Stoick’s son; the Mad Fishbone Boy—but before Toothless, it had been fairly general revulsion. Nobody knew what to do with him back then. Now, he had no idea what to do with anybody else, and nobody seemed to remember that about eight months ago he’d been the worst and most useless warrior in the entire village. Now he was _Hiccup, the Dragonrider._ Now he was _noticed_. Now, people wanted to sit at tables with him, and talk about how he’d lost his leg, or what it’d been like to decide _not_ to kill a dragon, or how he’d felt staring Red Death in the face.

He’d enjoyed it at first. He figured that anyone who’d spent their whole lives being told to change _all of them_ would have enjoyed it. Now, ten months of recovery and thoughtful bashing-of-head-into-walls later (there truly wasn’t anything to do, during wintertime; it was bang your head against a wall, tanning leather, stitching holes in trousers, or all of the three), the novelty was long gone. As soon as the third knock had come at the door— _I just wanted to talk to Hiccup about one of the Deadly Nadders, they’ve got into the hen house again—_ Hiccup had slipped out the back door with Toothless’s saddle, a small knife, the last of their dried mutton, and a heavy coat to go flying.

He could hear Stoick shouting at him already. When Toothless shot straight up into the sky, did six barrel rolls, and released a burst of bright violet flame that stretched the whole length of the village in his joy, Hiccup could not find it in himself to care all that much.

At the heights Toothless liked to coast, the air was still bitterly cold. Hiccup curled his fingers between the leather saddle and Toothless’s warm dragon hide, and blinked away the tears that were freezing against his lashes. The sun had risen only an hour ago, and light spilled across the still sea, making it spark like mica in stone. The knot that had been wound tight in his throat and guts all through the winter season was slowly unwinding, out here in the clean air and bright light. Hiccup settled his feet so Toothless could coast on the air currents, spreading his arms and letting the wind whip hard at the fabric of his winter coat. Not for the first time, he wondered what would happen if they just kept flying—how far they would get before Toothless needed to rest, what island they could take shelter on. Back before the Red Death, it’d been more of an escape fantasy. Now—now he wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the drive was still there. Not to escape, exactly. Just to see how far he could go.

“Don’t push too hard, buddy,” he said to Toothless finally, and Toothless chuffed and spat more fire, as if to say, _Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do._ “We haven’t been flying in months. You’ll sprain a muscle.”

Toothless rolled his eyes. Hiccup couldn’t see him do it, but he could feel it in every wingbeat.

“Don’t do that. I’m right and you know it.”

Without warning, Toothless tucked his wings in tight, and dove for the water. He pulled up at the last minute, but not without drawing a breathless, whooping scream from Hiccup, splashing them both with frigid seawater, and ensuring that the subject of _spraining wings_ was thoroughly, albeit not forever, dropped.

Stoick was not at home when Hiccup and Toothless returned to the house. He was off doing leaderly things, Hiccup supposed. Checking on egg supplies. Yelling at trees that fell over because they were holding too much snow. Making sure that all the rooves had held up over the winter. Gobber was, predictably, in the smithy. Now that winter was clearing up, everyone and their mother had something that needed fixing. Toothless, having flown until his wings were sore, popped off to do something dragony that involved a lot of scared-sounding sheep, so Hiccup stuck to the back of the smithy and helped forge a collection of basic amenities. Making nails was boring, certainly, but the warmth of the smithy was much preferable to ocean winds, and besides: it dried his clothes out from when Toothless dunked him much faster than anything else could.

It was coming on sundown when everyone began to gather in the Great Hall. Someone—he thought it might have been Astrid; it smelled like an idea she might have had—had gone out to sea during the day and come back with a fleet of fish. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were both taking credit for the largest of them, a sea bass that was almost the length of the long table. Hiccup couldn’t imagine Ruffnut and Tuffnut being able to _help_ with anything, really, but Barf and Belch were surprisingly good at holding up one end of a fishing net, and that was all they’d really need. Whichever one it was, the Great Hall smelled of fresh-roasted fish and smoke and the scent of close to two hundred Berkians all clustered together after a long winter, musty furs and dragonhide and smoke. The dragons had clustered, too. More than a dozen Terrors were curled up at Gothi’s feet where she stood by Stoick at the northern end of the table, baby Gronkles were settled by the fire and snoring smoke, and Astrid’s Stormfly was settled with her feet tucked up underneath her and her large head resting on one of the benches, getting the base of her horn scratched by a handful of delighted kids under Astrid’s supervision. When something bumped his elbow, Hiccup looked down to see Toothless, a bit of wool sticking out from the corner of his mouth, settled like a happy hound by his hip.

“You didn’t eat the sheep, did you?” said Hiccup.

Toothless snorted— _no, of course not, we played chase_ —and then settled by Hiccup’s feet as someone brought Hiccup a plate. Across the Hall, Gobber leaned closer to Stoick, and said something behind his hand. Hiccup frowned, There was a thump as Fishlegs put his food down, along with the _Book of Dragons_ —his winter project had been working on updating it. Across the table, Snotlout said, “Ugh.”

“I’m working,” said Fishlegs defensively, and pulled the _Book_ closer to himself.

“ _Ugh_ ,” said Tuffnut, settling on Fishleg’s other side. Ruffnut filled the last place on the bench, fish scales still crusting shiny on her cheek. “ _Seriously_ , Fishlegs?”

“I wanted to update the page on Night Furies,” said Fishlegs.

“We have consulted with Gothi,” said Stoick, and Hiccup drew his eyes back to his father. Hiccup sat politely, trying not to make his prosthetic squeak with how much he was bouncing his leg. With all the mumbling of the others around him, nobody would notice. Probably. “Our supplies are low. Lower than usual, with so many more hungry mouths to feed.” There was no recrimination in his voice, but Hiccup still winced. Next to him, Fishlegs bumped his elbow with his. Hiccup tried to smile back at him. It didn’t work out very well. “Our primary goal is restoring our stores. All karls should present their best craftswork in three days’ time for selection. In a week’s time, a party will be sailing for the Southern Isles.”

At once, the Great Hall erupted in whispers. Beside his father, Gothi pressed her thin lips together. It wasn’t quite a frown, but it wasn’t a smile, either, and Hiccup wasn’t sure what to make of it. Snotlout whooped.

“A group of ten warriors and three dragonriders will make the voyage down to Leirvik to trade wool and dragonscales for any materials we need on the island. Make your lists and present them to me prior to the departure. I’ll announce those warriors and dragonriders who will be making the trip in four days time. If you’ve reasons to remain on Berk, tell me now.”

 _Dragonriders,_ thought Hiccup, and for some reason he could not immediately identify, his palms began to sweat. _He wants dragonriders to go?_ He and his father had talked about a trading voyage during the winter months—it’d been one of the few things they could agree on doing, after the snows let up—but Stoick had never mentioned _dragonriders_.

“ _Southern Isles_ ,” said Ruffnut, and leaned forward to prop her chin in one hand. “Boys. Boys that aren’t _you_ idiots.”

“Better textiles,” said Fishlegs. “More books, too.”

Tuffnut glared and smacked him in the back of the head. “Are books all you think about?”

Ruffnut, immediately: “Like _you_ think at _all_!”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“Make me, idiot!”

“Moldbreath!”

“Fartface!”

“Dragonriders means _us_ , right?” Snotlout bared his teeth in something that approximated a grin. “We’re the best riders Berk has. Of course he’d pick me. I mean, us.”

Astrid shoved the twins away from the table before the brawl could get too nasty. She said, “Maybe. But if we’re raiding, none of us will be able to go. We’re not fully trained.”

“They just said trade,” said Hiccup, but his stomach was doing that strange sinking-flying thing that it always did when Astrid came near him. They hadn’t talked much over the winter. Obviously, he hadn’t spoken to _anyone_ much over the wintertime, but out of all the people on the island, only Astrid had kissed him and then decided to act like it had never happened. He still didn’t know how to quite look her in the eye. “That doesn’t mean raids.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Hiccup.”

“It won’t be a raid,” said Fishlegs. “We only raid when they encroach on _our_ territory. They haven’t done that in—”

“Ages,” said Snotlout, like this was personally offensive.

“Three generations,” said Fishlegs, and began to organize the food on his plate as if he were drawing out a strategy map. “The Gaels pushed into our territory and tried to claim fishing rights, so our great-great-grandparents went to teach them a lesson. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the First—”

“Yes, yes,” said Hiccup, now certainly queasy. Astrid had sat down beside him to look curiously at Fishlegs’ plate. There wasn’t much on it—they _were_ low on food—but he had some mashed turnips, and he was using the last hunk of bread he’d torn from the loaf to sweep it into different factions, one of which he’d sprinkled with what looked like dust from the tabletop to give it a different color.

“Other Vikings do it,” said Snotlout.

Hiccup bounced his leg more ferociously. “But it’s not something we really do on Berk, is it? I mean—”

“No,” said Astrid. She had her bossy tone on. “But then again, we’ve been fighting _dragons_. It’s hard to think about raiding southern islands when we’re struggling to keep our houses from catching on fire.”

Toothless, as if he’d heard her, lifted his head from the floor and made a low purring sound. When people turned to look, he settled his head back onto his paws, and let his eyes slip mostly closed. The barest slit of green peeked out, reflecting the flickering firelight.

“Right,” said Hiccup. The queasiness had made the jump from mild to somewhat seasick. “Right.”

Astrid looked at him. There were several kinds of Astrid looks that could freeze him in his tracks. The first was the _tell me what the hell you’re thinking of getting into now_ look, which before had been more laden with the kind of condescending revulsion that every other villager on Berk had felt about him. There was the _if you try it I’ll beat the hell out of you_ look, which Hiccup received less than Snotlout and Tuffnut, but it still terrified him all the same. And then there was this particular look, the _you’re being strange and un-Hooligan-like and I don’t know what to say about it_ look that always made his mouth all tacky. She said, “Right.”

“Lighten up,” said Snotlout, and draped his massive upper body across the table to steal the hunk of bread from Fishlegs’ fingers. Fishlegs made a noise like a clubbed sheep. Snotlout stuffed the bread into his mouth, and then said, “We need stuff. So, we buy stuff.”

“Trade,” said Fishlegs. “Shetland predominantly focuses on trade.”

“But we make things,” said Hiccup. “Lots of things. I make things all the time. And even if we don’t have the things we need, we don’t need to take the dragons with us.”

Snotlout rolled his eyes. “You’re still a freak, Dragonrider. A strangely good freak, but a freak.”

“Yeah, sure, just because I don’t like the idea of showing off all our dragons to the southerners I’m a freak.”

Snotlout lifted his hands in a _peace_ gesture, and walked off to talk to his father, still chewing his stolen bread.

“None of us are going,” said Astrid, and then stood up from the table. She carefully stepped over Toothless’s tail. “And it’s not a raid, so there won’t be any fighting. So don’t panic until you have a reason to panic.”

Hiccup’s voice cracked as he said, “I’m not panicking.”

“Sure,” said Astrid. “But we’d be stupid not to show off the dragons. Once people hear we’re not fighting them anymore, they’ll come nosing around thinking we’re dead, or, worse, that the dragons have left us so weak that we’d be easy pickings for some sea-wolves to swoop in and take Berk away from us.”

“That’s just assuming people have heard—”

“People will have heard,” said Astrid. “There are always warships circling Berk. Not every _ætt_ in the sea is allied with us, Hiccup. Soon as they get the chance, they’d love to take the island, and they’re the ones who need to know we’re more powerful than ever. If we don’t take a dragon or two, then that’d be first-class idiotic. Don’t you think?”

“If we take dragons, they’ll think we’re just going to attack them.” He waved a hand, and then said, “I don’t see why things have to change.”

Something flickered in the set of her mouth. Astrid scowled. “Change happens,” she said. “Whether we want it to or not.”

He couldn’t think up a counterargument. Hiccup opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and by the time he’d started to come up with a thought, Astrid had stalked off to go wait by Spitelout and, probably, eavesdrop on the adults’ conversations. 

The thing was, Astrid wasn’t _wrong_. Astrid was very rarely wrong. It was why it was so hard to argue with her. (That, and half the time if you tried she’d just punch you in the face.) The people of Berk had been fighting and killing dragons for _seven generations_ , and now half the village slept with dragon eggs tucked under the bed. Things would have to change. Things already _had_ changed. He just—wasn’t sure that change should include showing the whole world that Berk had _dragons_ now. Hiccup patted Fishlegs vaguely on the back of the shoulder (he was trying to recover his strategy in the patterns on his turnips), stepped over the still brawling twins, and made his way out the door. The half-moon cast just enough light to see the path, and not much more. Patches of snow and ice lingered. Toothless’s feet padded almost soundlessly behind him in the dirt, save for the drag of his tail. When Hiccup sat on the edge of the docks, dangling his feet over the water, Toothless huffed warm, sulfury breath into his hair.

“We can’t show them dragons,” Hiccup said to Toothless. Toothless blinked his luminescent eyes, and then settled on the dock, nudging his broad nose up under Hiccup’s elbow. Hiccup caught his balance on the wood, and winced when a splinter jammed into the heel of his palm. “It’s not—we can’t—”

He trailed off. About half a league offshore, a pair of Gronkles were fishing. They didn’t seem to be particularly good at it—Gronkles were round and lazy, not aerodynamic enough to catch fish even when the water wasn’t the wrong side of frozen—but they were trying, and steam was rising from the sea where they dropped like rocks into the water. Hiccup picked at the base of his thumbnail, watching them.

“It’s too dangerous,” he told Toothless. Toothless, who had already fallen mostly back to sleep, blinked lazily. “It’s too dangerous. If we tell people about you, they’ll all—they’ll all want a dragon. It’s too much.”

Toothless blinked again, as if to say, _But you’re Vikings. Vikings are warriors and raiders. They pillage the high seas._

“Not all Vikings,” said Hiccup helplessly.

Toothless flicked his tail. _Most Vikings._

“But Vikings can’t resist a challenge,” Hiccup said, and something in his throat came unstuck, like he’d been choking on a chicken bone. “If people hear we have dragons, they’ll want to come—come fight us just to test what we can do. Or come take the dragons—take _you_ for themselves.”

That made it through to Toothless, somehow. Hiccup wasn’t sure if it was his tone, or if Toothless could smell his fear, sudden and scalding under his skin. He made a soft, rumbling sound, anxious, and rested his head on Hiccup’s thighs. Hiccup put his hands to Toothless’s broad skull, to his earflaps and his strange, shovel-like snout. The hand with the splinter in it throbbed.

“Don’t worry, Toothless,” he said, after a long moment. Out at sea, the larger Gronkle let out a yodeling call, and started to wobble its way back to shore. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s notes:  
> \--I will be eliminating most of the modern slang from Berk scenes. The fact that the script included terms like boyfriend and girlfriend drove me nuts. I refuse to write it.  
> \--As a quick overview, Nordic society as a whole was divided into three segments: jarls (aristocracy), karls (agricultural/workforce), and thralls/þrælls (slaves/servants). As Berk is a fantasy society, they’ll be called a clan or an ætt; there won’t be thralls in the traditional historical sense of the word, and the division between jarls and karls will be even more blurred than it was in reality (most historical interpretations of Nordic people come from accounts written by their enemies; it doesn’t lend to accuracy).  
> \--I also will not be calling the folks on Berk a tribe, but rather a clan. As a white person with no Indigenous background, writing about Nordic people and ancient Scots, I find it inappropriate to use the term tribe.  
> \--Clan will also be used to describe Scottish clans. However, Scottish clans were generally more tied to a geographical area, whereas Nordic ætts were not.  
> \--On that note, Nordic is more accurate than Norse, as Norse implies simply "Norway" whereas Nordic includes most of Scandi.  
> \--The term Viking likely came from an old Nordic word for raiding; it could also have been from the word “vik” which meant “inland bay” but who knows. I’ll have the Scots call them Vikings, lochlannach (lake person, Gaelic), or Dene (dane, Anglo-Saxon), as well as northern invaders.  
> \--Also contrary to popularized history, about half of Nordic warriors were likely female, intersex, or other genders. As such my writing will likely reflect this. You can’t have a society come up with a revered trickster god who is openly genderfluid and quite probably intersex without having some serious queer culture icons on Midgard. Either way, this is based off of two kids’ movies about fantasy versions of both real life cultures and societies and I do what I want.  
> \--Similarly, Nordic people and Scots weren’t all white. Please don’t freak out if you see people of color in this fic. I’ll just laugh at you. Nordic communities amassed a lot of different people from all over, and Scotland, despite what the UK likes to present, was not all white. Not even hundreds of years ago.  
> \--Nords and Scots crossed paths from the 700s to approx. the 1100s. We’re setting this in the 1000s ish. Merida will not be wearing corsets. Pixar will forever be on my shitlist for that.  
> \--As I find 11th century hygiene gross, though, I’m adjusting bathing habits of certain Scottish clans.  
> \--On that note, contrary to a lot of popularized history from the 18th and 19th centuries, Nordic people were not dirty. No matter what Showtime tells you, they usually bathed once a day, and the English wrote A LOT about those “dastardly clean Nordic warriors with fancy beards” who’d steal their wives because they smelled good. I shit you not.  
> \--Nordic people and Scots also frequently intermarried, as there were far fewer people who went out to vikingr (raid) as there were traders and peaceful Nordic communities. As there are so many Hooligans with Scottish accents, I am choosing to believe that in the generations preceding Hiccup & Co there were a whole lot of intermarriages between Scots on the Orkneys and Faroe Islands with the Hooligans, and the dialect stuck around. (This would also lend to the idea that the Berk Nords would travel out to trade and bring back new additions to the gene pool, cause they wouldn’t have survived seven generations with constant dragon attacks without equally constant new additions to the village.) The new generation is just transforming linguistic bases, as all new generations do.  
> \--Generally Nordic warriors did not wear horned helmets. However, I feel like people that have spent seven generations fighting dragons would most likely develop that kind of thing to prevent dragons from biting their heads off without getting poked. I’m keeping the helmets.  
> \--Plus I think the image of angery half-Scots coming up with pointed hats to make sure dragons don’t eat them is hilarious.  
> \--There will be swearing, blood and guts, and likely Big Sads.  
> \--That’s about it for primers I think.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Culture notes at end. 
> 
> BIG WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER: IF YOU ARE CLAUSTROPHOBIC, FEAR BEING BURIED ALIVE, OR HAVE REASONABLE FEARS ABOUT BOGS/PEAT BOGS/DROWNING IN BOGS, BE CAREFUL HERE. CONTENT WARNING.

**TWO**

“If you touch that,” said Merida, “I will cut you into eight pieces and feed you to the hounds.”

On the table, Hubert froze. On his shoulders, Harris grinned.

Merida pulled the arrow back to her cheek. “Hamish,” she said. “Don’t. You. _Dare._ ”

Hamish looked at her, and then in one fluid movement he seized the basket of apples from the upper shelf of the kitchen cupboard, and overtipped the lot of them. They were bigger now, the boys—turning five meant they’d shot up, each of them, a handspan or so—but they still were neither tall nor heavy enough to keep their balance on two chairs and a saucepan. Merida loosed the arrow—the bolt caught the handle of the apple basket, pinned it to the wall and kept it from hitting the floor—and then the boys landed on the kitchen table with a tremendous _crash_ , knocking plates, cakes, and the leg of lamb that Maudie had had resting in a bed of rosemary onto the ground.

“Ach,” said Merida, and jumped off the table herself. “ _Boys_.”

Hamish sat up, rubbed the dust off his nose, and gave her a scowl.

“Don’t look at me like that, you goblin,” said Merida, and took one of the fallen apples and slipped it into her pocket. She heaved the heavy cast iron pan with the leg of lamb back up into her arms. The lamb itself hadn’t hit the floor, thankfully—well, only a bit of it had—and if you turned it then you’d never see the dust on the fresh-washed meat. “Y’know what would have happened if Mum’d seen you?”

Hubert pulled a face.

“Aye, she would have.” She heaved up the cakes, too, and sighed at the dent in the edge of the copper plate. “Don’t look at me like that, Hubert, I’ve not—”

Harris also rubbed the tip of his nose, and then clambered off the table.

“I am _not_ boring now!” Merida said, very loud and sharp, and then realized there was a maid at the top of the kitchen stairs. She blushed—she couldn’t help it—and hid her bow behind her back. “I—h’lo.”

“Princess,” said the maid—a new hire from the village, one that Merida didn’t know particularly well. She looked up at the wall, where the apple basket was still pinned between the stones. “…is everything all right?”

“Fine,” said Merida, a little high pitched. “Isn’t it, boys?”

Hamish blew his nose into his hand, and wiped it on his shirt.

“Right,” said the maid, and backed towards the door. “I’ll—go and dust the main hall, then.”

“Oh, I—”

The door shut behind her.

“Now look what you’ve done,” said Merida, and seized Hamish about the ribs before he could escape. He squealed right into her ear like a stuck pig. “Get those apples up _off_ the floor, you little mongrels, and _get back to your lessons before_ —”

Hamish popped his finger in his mouth, and before he could stop her, stuck his sticky, spit-laden forefinger right into her ear and twisted it. Merida _shrieked_ , and dug her fingers into Hamish’s ribs, and then it was all-out war, with her bow falling to the ground and Hubert and Harris climbing her legs like burrs to knock her to the flagstones. “The _arrows_ ,” she said, and rolled to the side, but her quiver was empty all of a sudden—there was a skittering sound like rolling twigs—she caught one of the boys, Harris, she thought, and blew raspberries into his belly before tiny sticky hands caught her hair and yanked hard enough to make her squeal. It took a full five minutes before she managed to pin all of them under her—they all could have escaped if they’d wanted to, she thought, with immense fondness, but they let her squish them into submission without fighting _too_ hard. Merida heaved herself to her feet, arms around all three boys—Hamish squealed again when she rubbed her face into his hair—and dragged them out of the kitchen into the courtyard.

“Go,” she said, after a moment. She let them slip down to the ground again. “Go back and go to Maudie for lessons, before Mum sees you out here, and when you finish I’ll—I’ll take you out for archery.”

Hubert and Harris looked at each other.

“With cake,” she added, because cake was the easiest way to bribe the boys, and honestly after this _she_ needed cake. “Apple cake.”

Hamish nodded once, and shook her hand as if sealing a pact. Then, as one, the boys turned and darted for the wall to find one of their hidey-holes, hopefully—she crossed her fingers—to make their way back up into the tower and to poor Maudie, who was likely just waiting in the dark.

“What did they need the apples for, anyway,” she muttered to herself, and went to pick up the arrows she’d left on the floor of the kitchen. Knowing the boys, they were probably laying a bait trap for a boar, or wanting to use them as trebuchet ammunition, or—well, who knows. The older the boys became, the more difficult it was becoming to predict them. Either they were getting more cunning with age, or she was getting stupider with maturity.

…maybe both.

The boys had managed to salvage all her arrows out of her quiver before she’d crushed them under her own weight. She’d had an even twelve before shooting through the basket. Now she had ten. One was missing. She couldn’t remember seeing it on any of them, but they’d winkled larger things away under their kilts, and she supposed they couldn’t do _too_ much damage with a single arrow. They were probably more interested in learning how to make arrows for themselves than anything; now that they’d turned five, she and her father had been alternating teaching them how to use a bow. _She’d_ started at five, and her mum had reasoned that the triplets having something to do besides come up with increasingly inventive ways (even by their standards) to frighten the daylights out of Maudie would maybe help them settle a bit. Merida couldn’t tell if it was helping, but they _were_ losing interest in making bear calls to make Maudie scream, and that, she supposed, could only be for the better.

“It’s been a year,” she said to herself, and brought a stool over to perch on to unpin the basket of apples from the wall. “You’d think they’d lose interest in a _year_.”

Of course, the basket of apples had no way to reply.

It’d been a long time since she’d last managed to snatch a moment to herself. It was late spring, now, and that meant it was time to start calving. Most of the cows and sheep that’d been bred were bred in the end of summer and beginning of autumn, to ensure that all the ewes and cows were pregnant over the wintertime and that milk production would be fresh in springtime. Elinor had been up since before dawn calculating the maths necessary to ensure that Dun Broch would be able to pay its debts with shearing and lambs come summer, and though usually her mum wanted her help with the maths, the boys were now old enough to be interested in reading and writing—and adding extra numbers to sheets of paper that they truly couldn’t afford to lose. Merida had been sent out to keep them distracted, and then to take on all matters that would normally come before the Queen while her parents struggled to make sense of her father’s chickenscratch handwriting. (It wasn’t that her father hadn’t _learned_ to write. He had. He just…didn’t bother to practice, and didn’t write down anything her mother found particularly useful. In the words of the Queen, _your father is as distracted with his records as the boys with a hound pup and a mud puddle._ )

With the farmers busy calving and lambing, and the villagers busy shearing the not-pregnant rams or ewes, or tending to the beehives, or helping sew the few fields they could have in the rocky hills surrounding Dun Broch, and still more fishing in the loch, and _still more_ preparing for the spring solstice celebration a week’s time, Merida had—very little to do. A year ago, she would have been on Angus and out the door and into the woods in a heartbeat. Now, though, she stood in the middle of the courtyard, tipped her head back, and let the sun warm her cheeks and throat. It’d been cloudy for the past few weeks, and now the rare spring sunshine mixed with the fresh breezes made her feel _free_ in a way that being cooped up in the castle could not. She had to stay in the castle in case someone needed help in the village or out calving, but other than that she could just relax and enjoy the fresh air and take a breather for the first time in a long while.

It was rare that they just had _peace_ in Dun Broch. Winter was a busy time of sewing and stitching and weaving and hunting; summer was all festivals and clan gatherings; and autumn was the time for apple picking and ale brewing and mead. There was never a moment to just breathe, it seemed. She’d thought her life _before_ the witch and Mor’du had been busy; her life _after_ , when her mother asked and did not command, when Merida volunteered to help with things she enjoyed instead of being forced into doing something she did not want, was somehow thrice as busy but not nearly so exhausting. 

Before Mor’du, winter had been _torture_. Stuck inside for weeks at a time, never having anything to do other than read books she didn’t like or practice the harp because _that_ was what _princesses_ did with their time, while her da could go hunting or out riding in the snow or her mother would do—whatever it was the Queen did in the winter. Now, Merida had a much better idea of—well, _everything_ her parents did in the winter. Elinor had asked what she’d _like_ to do, after the first snowfall, and Merida had stabbed wildly into the dark and picked _weaving a tapestry_ , because she’d enjoyed the first one she’d made with her mother over the summer and it seemed like a good way to strike a balance between staying inside and doing something useful. (She’d liked weaving even when she’d hated sewing and playing harp; there was something about weaving that was almost like carving, the thorough joy of making something _useful_ with her bare hands, like shooting a deer or fletching an arrow, knowing that by the end of it she’d have created a hanging to keep warmth in a cold stone room, or woven a blanket that would be used by her brothers in a year or ten years’ time.)

By midwinter she’d finished her tapestry, completely by herself, though under her mother’s watchful eye. She’d repaired the boys’ clothes any scores of times and for now, at least, they hadn’t re-ripped any seams. She’d even hemmed sheets (a chore she _despised_ but tried to work on anyway, pricking her fingers enough to make them swell up like they’d been stung by bees). When the snows were highest, she’d gone out to help the village hunt down the rare buck or doe that were hiding in the forests around Dun Broch. One shockingly cold morning, she’d helped her father and a gaggle of guards chase a wolf pack away from the sheep pens, and the scar she’d snagged from falling off Angus was still bright pink on the flesh of her upper arm. She’d been eye to eye with a wolf, and the wolf had turned away.

Merida touched the amulet she wore around her neck, marked with three bears. Her father had been disappointed she hadn’t shot the thing through the eye. _A wolf pelt for your bed, lass, keep you warm._ She’d thought about it. At the time, she just—hadn’t even considered it. Wolves in the mountains were large, dangerous, vicious when cornered, but—but she just hadn’t even thought of loosing her arrow. When it turned and ran, she’d felt almost relieved of the choice. Such a beautiful, wild thing didn’t deserve to be skinned and made into a blanket for her bed, she thought. She’d been lovely, and Merida did not regret letting the wolf bitch run.

“Princess,” said a voice, and Merida came back to herself with a blink. She’d not heard the footsteps, and—she cursed herself—she should have, for the woman to get so close. Fidelma was the sister of one of the castle kitchenmaids, a woman with no children and what seemed to be a thousand baseborn nieces and nephews. She was the biggest gossipmonger in the village, and also—Merida wrinkled her nose—not a quiet walker in the slightest; she should _not_ have been able to sneak up on Merida, no matter how deep in thought she’d been. Her round cheeks were flushed scarlet, and the hem of her skirts was slick with mud up to the knees, as if she’d been wading. “Princess—”

Merida bit back a sigh. She’d been getting better at that, lately. “Fidelma, if it’s not urgent, I really don’t—”

“Jamie’s rode his horse into one of the bogs,” said Fidelma, and Merida’s hands and feet went cold all at once in their wrappings. “Wee Jamie, my sister’s boy—he was out riding and the mare stumbled and we can’t get to him, he’s trapped half under the pony—”

“Where—”

“The bog beyond the eastern fields, the one that’s newly sewn—”

Merida didn’t wait. She whistled for one of the guards, and slung herself up onto Angus’s back. She’d ten arrows, too few, her knife in her boot, she’d need— “Rope,” she told the guard who’d come running, as Fidelma sank to her knees in the mud of the courtyard and wheezed for breath. “Send Euan to the mill, get as much rope as you can—and tell Maudie she’s needed at the edge of the eastern fields—”

“Princess—”

“—and tell my mother!” said Merida, and then rammed her heels hard into Angus’s side.

There was already a crowd forming around the edge of the eastern fields. Jamie was a wee thing, only seven or eight, and—Merida thought this privately, but she was sure she was right about it—probably a byblow of one of the MacIntosh warriors from the last Highland games, before the boys had been born. He certainly looked like a MacIntosh, all dark hair and pretty eyes, with a nose bigger than most men could boast before he even hit ten. At first, in all the mud and disturbed peat, the only thing she could see was the loamy earth, wet and damp and stinking with cow manure and dank water. As she slid off Angus and the crowd parted for her, she could make out the pony—drowned already, poor thing, russet coat slathered with mud and its head fully underwater—and then, with her heart in her throat, one small hand still knit tight into the leather saddle. The next second, what she’d mistaken for a bit of overturned grass moved. His head.

 _Head and an arm,_ she thought, and what little hope had been in her curdled like bad milk. _No_. If the lad only had a leg out of the mud, it’d be easier, but—

“Princess.” Gareth, one of the castle guards, made a short little bow and then looked back to the peat. “The mother’s there.”

Merida didn’t look. If she looked at Ailbhe, there’d be no rescuing Jamie. “How long’s he been in there?”

“Mother noticed him missing three hours ago,” said Gareth. His lips pressed together. “Took us this long to find him.”

“We should have been told.”

“Ailbhe thought he was off in the woods again.”

Merida scoffed, and swore under her breath. Gareth kindly did not mention it.

“Lad’s awake,” he added, and Merida tested the give of the ground under her feet before looking to the crowd of watchers. “Though he’s getting weak.”

“And cold,” said Merida, and Gareth nodded. Foreign folk feared the peat bogs because they thought they’d drown—sink right in up to your neck and be swallowed away by the earth. Peat killed slowly, though. Cold and exhaustion would kill you more than the mud. There were ropes around the pony’s neck—soaked, and on one end bloody from men trying to pull the mare free and tearing their flesh, most likely—but there were none around little Jamie. “How deep?”

“He can’t feel the bottom. When we tested with poles, we touched earth at about sixteen hands.”

So a little taller than she was. If she tiptoed, she could make it. Merida bounced on the balls of her feet. In the distance, she could see another horse and rider coming through the fields. Euan with the ropes, she prayed. She raked both hands through her hair—she’d not tied it up today, and had no leather strap—before looking to Gareth. “How tired are the men?”

“Half came from the field to assist and tried to pull the mare out, get the lad out from underneath her and have a better chance, but—” He shook his head. “If we’d not been all scattered to the fields today—”

“It’s no one’s fault,” she said, sharply. Merida scraped her hair back out of her eyes again, swore under her breath. “When Euan arrives, hitch us up to Angus. He’s strong enough to pull us both out.”

Gareth’s lips parted. “Princess—”

“You’re too tired,” she said, and looked at his hands. His palms were raw from the rope. “You’ve been trying to shift the mare, and she’s dead weight. We’ll tie a rope to me and I’ll get him out.”

“Princess, that’s _too dangerous_ , your mother—”

“My mother left me in charge,” said Merida. “If we leave him there, he’ll drown. Someone has to go in after him. The other women aren’t strong enough, and we can’t wait any longer for fresh men to come from the castle. It has to be me.”

The look Gareth gave her made her—feel odd. Like he was seeing her mother, not her, just for a moment. The expression on his face went distant, and frightened, but approving in turn, as if he could not decide what to feel; he ducked his head in another bow. “Highness,” he said, and Merida almost swore again.

“Help me with my lacings.” Gareth goggled at her, and Merida _did_ swear again. “Christ’s sake, man, the dress is too heavy to not pull me under, _help me with my lacings_ before we lose him!”

In the end, Maudie (who’d arrived halfway through the process and turned _horrified_ ) and the other women came to help Merida with her lacings, because Gareth and the other men were too panicked at the very thought of their princess stripping to her shift to even _look_ at her. One of them had a leather tie, and plaited her hair from the crown of her head. Merida undid her boots and stepped out of them—her hands were trembling worse than when she’d first seen Mor’du, though no one was rude enough to mention it—and found the edge of the bog with her toes. It was _cold_ , out here in the early spring. The warm sun on her back had been deceiving her. One foot into the bog, and her bones turned to ice. “Jamie,” she said, pitching her voice as best she could. “Jamie, lad, can you hear me?”

There was a long, horrible moment where there was no sound. Then the little hand raised from the dead mare’s side, and a voice piped, “Princess, is that you?”

“We’re coming to get you, Jamie,” she said, and lifted her arms for one of the women to tie the rope around her. “Just hold on, lad.”

“’m tired,” said Jamie, and his voice began to dim. “Princess—”

“Just hold on to your horse, Jamie—” She turned, and Ailbhe, behind her, sobbed anew. “Talk to him, Ailbhe, keep him talking—”

“Jamie,” said Ailbhe, and though her voice warbled, it echoed strong across the peat. Merida took a deep, rattling breath, and tried to ignore her. “Jamie, love, can you hear me, darlin’?”

“Mum,” said Jamie, and then Merida blocked them out.

Bogs were tricksters. Jamie and his mare had tumbled right into what must be one of the deeper sections—and bogs could go _deep_ , four grown men deep if they’d a mind—but there were usually patches of stronger peat, where a man or, perhaps, a slender girl could stand without the earth giving way beneath them. This bog was not one of those bogs. There was no sedge grass or heather, not here, just _mud_ , cold and dark and unforgiving. _Sixteen hands._ There was hard earth down there at the bottom, and the little pony and the little boy could not find it, but _she_ could. If their measurements were right. If there wasn’t a sudden dropoff beneath the mud, where they could not see. Merida drew a breath, and then another, and then sat on the edge of the bog, and slipped her legs in. It was _cold_ , and no wonder the poor boy couldn’t move anymore. It _bit_ with what felt like snowmelt. The rope went taut around her waist and ribs—men, she thought, Gareth among them, picking up the slack.

She drew another deep, horribly cold breath, and let herself sink into the mud.

She’d come as close to the dead mare and to Jamie as she could on solid ground. Still, there were a few treacherous meters of thick mud to go before she could touch either of them, and the mud was already pulling at her legs. She kept her arms above the rotten grass as best she could, and moved slowly. _Slow, Merida, dear,_ that was what her dad had said. _Slowly and carefully is how you get out of a bog, and try to keep as much of yourself above the mud as possible_. _The more you panic, the more you sink._ The rope around her pulled tight and kept her above the surface. In a second, though, her shift was soaked through, and her stockings. Her hair turned brown with muck. Another step, and another, and it was _so slow_ , wading this way, but there was no other way to do it. She paced herself. Keep her arms up, take a breath, carefully move her leg forward through the mud—which _hurt_ , enough to make her cry out and sweat—and then rest for three breaths before getting up the effort to do it again. She almost didn’t realize when she bumped into the pony; she just knew there was something to put her hands on, something to hold and let herself rest against. Her whole body felt like one bruise.

“Jamie,” she said, and the little head lifted from the pony’s ribcage. There was mud over his nose and mouth, mud in his hair, and his eyes were red from crying, but he was alive. “How’re you doing, lad?”

Jamie, clearly, was too tired to talk. He let out a breath, and shut his eyes tight.

“That’s what I thought,” said Merida. She waded closer, and came up against him, her back to his shoulder, wedging her arm deep into the muck to wrap it around his ribs. “Take hold, Jamie, we’re going to pull you out, now—”

“My leg—”

“Just hold onto me, all right? I’ll manage it.”

Jamie wrapped his arms around her neck, and clung on. He was barely strong enough to do that, she thought; the usual stranglehold was missing. Merida felt around under the mud, along his ribs, then to his hips, then to his legs.

The first one was fine. When she found it, it was undamaged, though his trousers were torn and he’d lost his shoe. When she asked him to move it—“slowly, Jamie, please”—he could bend his knee without pain. She had to shift about in the mud to find the other, and _that_ was when she realized what’d happened. Jamie must have been galloping his pony, and when they’d tripped and flung themselves deep into the bog mud, his leg had been tangled with the leather straps of his saddle. It might be broken, she couldn’t tell with just her hands, but there was the stirrup, and there was Jamie’s ankle and calf and boot, and the two were wrapped tight together in a stranglehold that kept him stuck just as tight as if he’d been trapped between two rocks.

“Kiss a bawbag, you bowfing mare,” hissed Merida through her teeth, and wished for her knife. _Why hadn’t she brought her knife with her_? “Dafty thing—”

“Princess?”

“Stay still, Jamie.”

Jamie had not moved. Still, he sighed again, and hid in her neck. She had both arms under the mud, now—she swore under her breath—and was struggling to find the latch to the stirrup. There _should_ be one, made of copper, the same smith made all the saddles in the village and Angus’s saddle had one, and when she found it with her fingertips she let out a whoop like she’d shot a pheasant in January. The latch came undone without much effort. It took more time to unwind the strap from around Jamie’s leg, and she could feel warm tears leaking down her neck as she did it—he’d been trapped in the bog for _hours_ , the strap around his leg, and for a second she wondered if it could even be saved, if the blood had been cut off from his foot for too long, but that was a Maudie question, not for her, and she cursed and cursed as the leather fought her—

And then it was free, and Jamie sobbed aloud as the leather released him. Merida levered one arm slowly out of the mud, and tried to pretend she wasn’t shaking with exhaustion.

“There you are.” She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and then pulled her other arm out of the muck to find the rope that’d been tied around her ribs. “Get ready!”

On the shore, Ailbhe let out a wail worthy of a _ban sith_. Jamie was quiet again, holding Merida around the throat, shoulders shivering. He was freezing, she realized. Like carrying a bag of cold stones. She wrapped one arm around him, and gripped the rope with her free hand. “Right,” she said, and it was more to herself than to Jamie, more to reassure her own mind that they could get out of this. “Right. I’m going to walk back to shore now. You hold on tight, and they’ll pull us out. And then we’ll go get dry and warm and have—have cider. All right?”

Out of the corner of her eye, something flickered blue.

For a moment, Merida thought she was dreaming. The wisp hung suspended, like a candle flame, over the surface of the bog. Jamie wasn’t looking. Those on the shore—she darted a glance, and realized her father was there, grey as a ghost—didn’t seem to have noticed it. It hovered, flickering, and the soft hum of its voice caught in her ears, quivering like a plucked string. Something echoed.

_Let go of the boy._

Merida caught her breath. The wisp flickered over the mud, and spun, and hummed again. She’d not seen one since Mor’du. She’d forgotten how ethereal they could be, how clear. As though she were looking into the heart of something she had no right to see. Bluer than the sky, or than the waters of the ocean.

 _Let the boy go to shore,_ said the voice, and this time she felt it bone-deep. Echoing. The bottom of the bog seemed to warm against her toes. _He will be safe._

Will-o’-the-wisps lied, she thought. Bog-wisps liked to lure travelers into the mud, and let them drown. But the wisps had never harmed her, and there was a sense—she could not speak it. She just—she _felt_. The wisps wouldn’t harm Jamie, she thought. The wisps wouldn’t harm her. 

“Jamie,” said Merida, very slowly. “Lad, I need you to do something for me. I want you to grab the rope with both hands.”

Jamie lifted his head from her shoulder. “I’m tired, Princess.”

The wisp bobbed again, as if to say, _you’re running out of time._

“You’ll be all right,” said Merida, and spat mud out of her mouth. It tasted foul. “I need you to reach around me and find the knot. All right?”

Jamie didn’t argue. He reached his arms around her, and then fumbled, fumbled, fumbled at the knot until it came undone. He’d found the slip to it, bless him. Merida shimmied out of the rope, and then wound it three times around Jamie’s ribs and gave him the end to hold.

“It’s just a few more steps,” she said, and out of the corner of her eye the blue glow of the wisp grew brighter. There was a second one, now, and a third, circling as if in a ring of standing stones. “A few more big steps, and they’ll pull you out. See how close the edge is?”

On the shore she could hear people shouting, but it echoed as if in a haze. Jamie looked at her, with his big blue eyes, and then nodded.

“Good boy,” said Merida, and that was when a pair of clawed hands seized her about the ankles and dragged her deep into the mud of the bog.

She could not breathe. She could not inhale. Her nose was full of mud, her mouth, her eyes. Roots and dead leaves tore at her arms, her legs. The hands around her ankles would not let go—they were warm, hot almost, as if they’d been holding wrapped coals, and they _pulled_ her, down and down and down. Merida tried to scream, but when her mouth opened her throat filled with mud. She was choking, she could not breathe—everything was dark—she could not breathe—hands caught through hers, small fingers touching her palms, her cheeks, her shoulders—a blue glow lit the mud, gleaming behind her closed eyelids—

 _Look_ , said the voice, and Merida opened her eyes without hesitation. She couldn’t command her own limbs. She tried to fight, to scream again, but she could not move. _Look behind_.

There was a man. His true name was Rob. His mother called him Robin. He stood a head above his brothers, and could bear the three of them on his shoulders until he turned eighteen summers and could not lift them all at once. Voices whispered to him, and told him he could rule the whole of Alba, from north to south, and oust the northern invaders with their longships and their harsh, tangled words of God and flame and ruin, ensure his kingdom would be free from all trespassers who dealt in blood and death. He stood seven feet tall, taller than the tallest warrior, and his father told him he was stubborn enough to crumble mountains. He followed the wisps into the woods, and did not return a man. His name, after that, was lost, but he still heard the voices, stalking the woods with all four feet.

 _Look behind_ , said the voice, and Merida looked.

There was a woman. Her true name was long forgotten. Her mother called her monster. She was small and thin, dark as a raven, and spoke to people no one else saw. She married, and when her husband died her foster-family left her on an island to the north, rocky and empty, to live her life out in exile. She was meant to die of loneliness, but instead, she found the ocean people, men and women who drew cloaks of sealskin over their bodies and vanished into the sea. Voices whispered to her, and told her she could be free, and she took heed of them, following the wisps to an ancient cave at the base of her island that was slick with algae and shells. She walked into the sea, and she never returned to land again on two legs, and the voices echoed in the cave in ancient and terrible song.

Merida could not breathe.

 _Look,_ said the voice again, and there was a small red-haired child chasing wisps through a forest. _Look_ , it said, and there was Mor’du watching her through the trees, a little girl with a bow in her hands and blue corpse candles leading her away from danger. _Look_ , it said, and there she was again, older and standing in a circle of stones, and the wisps leading her away to magic and choice. The voices whispered.

 _Look,_ it said. _Do you see?_

 _I don’t understand_ , Merida said. There was mud in her mouth, but all at once she was not choking. _I don’t understand_.

 _Look ahead_ , said the voice, and the blue light of the wisps grew brighter and brighter—she could smell smoke, fire—a red deer bolted through the woods, being chased by hounds—a longship was sinking beneath the sea—the MacIntosh tartan was burning—a burst of violet flame lit a thundering sky—an island was on fire—a bloodstained flag marked with a twisted knot—a bear chained—a statue—an outstretched hand—

 _Merida_ , someone shouted, a new voice, a human one, and then it was whipped away and gone—

 _Look_ , said the voice, and when Merida opened her eyes, it was to sunlight and her father scooping mud from her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--I'm not writing Scottish accents. You all know they're Scottish. Have fun.  
> \--Sooooo this is a fun period in Scottish history where things changed quickly depending on who decided to conquer a certain area when, and not all the contemporary sources we have for this period have the answers. I.e. it’s prime territory for me to do what I want, within some boundaries.  
> \--I decided to be a creep and zoom in super close on certain scenes in Brave to try and read maps (twitter DOT com /shuofthewind/ status/ 1243759701445292032) and from what I can tell it LOOKS like Dun Broch is in the Grampian Mountains area which to my understanding was mainly controlled by many minor Scottish Kings at the time. Other areas (more northern than that) were Nordic-Gaelic combinations, or just straight out lands that had been conquered by Norway. (This included The Hebrides, Arran, the Orkneys, and Shetland, so any island was basically owned by the Vikings.) I’m settling the lands of the other three clans in the Strathclyde area, which was conquered by the Scots and taken away from the Britons/Anglo-Saxons around the 1030s.  
> \--(Yes, I know the island in the map is labeled Skye. It is not the Isle of Skye. It is completely the wrong shape, the coastline of Scotland in that area is wrong, and just. It’s Arran.)  
> \--The Britons (Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons) were different from Picts or Gaelic peoples, with a different culture and different linguistic family. They controlled the Strathclyde area from about the 500s on. The Strathclyde area was probably mostly Christian. Vikings laid siege to the area in the late 800s. It was conquered again by the Scots in 1054, but there’s not a lot of clarity as to how or why. There’s also records from Welsh traditions claiming that the people of Strathclyde refused to unite with the English and decided to travel into Wales, but we’re unsure if that’s true. Either way the area was owned by Scots by 1050ish at the latest.  
> \--Also. They talk about how Wee Dingwall killed a lot of Romans. Romans were…long gone by this point. SO. Romans will not be making an appearance here. We’ll say it was Clan Leader Dingwall exaggerating. Again. Wee Dingwall defeated zombies. It is known.  
> \--Speaking of Christianity, the Nordic parts of Scotland were Christian at this time thanks to the Norwegian king ordering them to be so on pain of massacres if they didn’t convert. I’m not really going to be touching on religion much in this fic because…dragons. But personally I am asatro so that’ll impact things on my end.


End file.
